A matter of custody
by planet p
Summary: AU; after Mr. Parker's death, what happens to Miss Parker's little brother?


**A matter of custody** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters.

* * *

She's looking at me now. It's after dad's funeral – well, I say funeral, but they never really did recover the body.

Anyway, tonight we're sitting together in the waiting room of the law firm with whom our father had appointed himself a high-priced solicitor, waiting to hear into whose custody our "little brother" will be placed.

In truth, I'm hoping it'll be my sister, but I also don't want it to be the company which dad had run for so long, really, a smallish, under-funded branch of a large, global multi-billion dollar corporation.

I'm not a fan of things like that, I suppose you could say. Sure, I work for the same company, but it's never left me feeling particularly moral… not that anything about what I do, or my work, is particularly moral in itself.

Which is mostly why I want our little brother to go to my sister.

I think of how much that particular line of thought – _to go to_ – makes him seem more like a possession than a living, feeling being, a person.

He is a person, and he needs to be with someone who'll understand that.

My sister will still see him as a person… she was there when he was born, she watched him breathe outside in the world for the first time, and his mother breathe for the last time.

The room feels close, closed, artificial; the lights, and the electrical wires running through the walls that I can't quite feel, start to make me feel ill, and maybe that look from my sister.

Angered, but determined.

She doesn't mean it to show, I think it's just that she can't always hide it.

I wish the solicitor would hurry, anything to take my sister's mind from the anger she feels, and my mind from her anger. The larger part of it, I know, is directed at me. I'm alive, after all, and dad's not, and little brother's just three years old. She couldn't be angry at a three-year-old, at least, not _that_ angry.

I'd like to leave, but that's not really an option. I know my sister resents me for being here, but I could no more leave her alone than I could tell her I'd really rather it be her.

She sees something underlyingly wrong in _everything_ I say, no matter what I say – sometimes I think she'd prefer if I said _nothing_.

But I can never talk about these things to her. The assumed intimacy would hurt her, appal her, and repel her even further from me.

I call her "sis" because I can't call her by her name, and I can't call her by the title she has fashioned for herself. I would if I could, but it always upsets me.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if her fiancé had not been murdered, had not died. Would she have still gone on calling herself by that name?

I turn my mind to other matters, to that of my "wife." I wonder if she hates me, too? We've never really spoken at length after she found out.

I suppose that it's possible, very likely.

There's this strange thing that happens when I think of her, and I realise I've never really loved another woman exactly the way I love her, and even though it seems – it _is_ – perfectly understandable, I always still find it strange, and just that bit cruel. After all, if I'd really loved her – my sister doesn't believe me capable of "love" – would I have done all of the things I've done? If I really loved her, wouldn't I have moved Heaven and Earth to make things better for her, to make things okay for her?

Wouldn't I have been truthful that first time?

And it's the same now, I realise.

All of the old traps are opening up, and I'm falling into them, one by one, all over again.

I love my sister, you see, but I can't let love come into it, not even love can compel me to share what I know I should, what I know I have no right in withholding.

I should tell her that I don't want the boy, our little brother, my son. I should tell her that I _can't_ have him. I should tell her that she'd love him much better, despite the enormous care that I have for him. She'd love him the way he _should_ be loved. He's never done anything not to be.

I should tell her these things, but I _can't_.

I wonder if I'm scared. If why I won't say is because I'm scared she'll think me worse, or _not_ as worse as before.

I've never thought of myself as scared of change before, and now that I think of it, my anger only fuels the sickness that I feel. I wish again that the solicitor hurries what he is doing, and hurries out to us.

If he could just hurry, I'd feel much better, I think.

My attention moves to linger upon my sister, momentarily, and I think that we're thinking the same thing.

I don't smile, I don't feel any small thrill of understanding, of something shared; I feel terribly ill.

I need for my sister, for our little brother, to be safe.

Safe is away from me.

The solicitor appears in the doorway, but does not move into the waiting room.

I wait for my sister to stand, before, I, too, stand to follow the solicitor out to his office.

* * *

_Spell Check says that "underlyingly" is not a word? The custody of their "brother" would be an issue after Mr. Parker's death, wouldn't it? I wrote this down in an exercise book and transcribed it into a word processing document later; it's a lot less pages in a word processing document. Thanks for reading!_


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